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13 the AIIM International Standards website at http://www.aiim.org] In order to prevent loss of information and loss of functionality and to ensure legal admissibility and validity for audit purposes a migration programme should involve: • establishing formal policies for migration to substantiate why specific options for migration were chosen and how they were used; • assigning responsibility for migration to a specific person or unit; • assessing the impact of migration strategies on the integrity and utility of records (including testing the approach on a sample of records before implementing it); • establishing and implementing an appropriate quality control procedure for migration; • documenting migration procedures and actions by preparing thorough and complete documentation of any measures taken to convert records to new formats (documentation should include the organisation's migration policy, the reasons for selecting the specific migration option, the results of any tests or evaluation of the impact of the method used, the specific methods used and any known changes to the records that resulted from conversion and/or reformatting as well as details about the old and new file formats). The preservation of electronic records can be very costly in the long run if all records generated electronically have to be migrated continuously. The appraisal of electronic records at an early stage thus becomes more essential. By identifying those records that need to be kept accessible for long periods of time and limiting the migration process to only those records, the cost of migration can be kept at a minimum. 4.1.4 Metadata Metadata is descriptive data that gives context to electronic documents. Without the necessary descriptive metadata attached a document cannot be considered to be a record. Descriptive metadata gives information about where a document comes from, who the creator was, when it was created, where it is located, etc. Metadata is also information describing data and their systems; that is the background information that describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data or a record was created, collected or received and how it is formatted. It also includes documentation on migration procedures and actions. It is imperative that the necessary metadata should be captured to enable records to be understandable in future. There are a number of international studies underway to determine which metadata should be kept to ensure long term accessibility of records. Since electronic recordkeeping systems’ design includes the capturing of metadata as an inherent component of the system, most of the metadata elements are system generated. Governmental bodies should however contact the National Archives and Records Service to find out what metadata elements would be required for the long term preservation of electronic records and should ensure that those elements are captured by the electronic system and/or the users. Managing electronic records_Policy Guidelines.doc First Edition Version 1.1 April 2003
14 4.1.5 Version control Version control is imperative. Electronic records can be located in various places at the same time e.g in a centralized database, in shared network filing spaces, on local hard drives and on a variety of other storage media. This makes it more difficult to manage the creation, revision and deletion of records. If the creation of records is not managed properly it can happen that someone may accidentally use the wrong version of an electronic record or that records which should have been kept are accidentally destroyed. If too many versions of a document are kept without proper version control it becomes impossible to identify the final version which will become the record copy. Likewise if several versions of a record are kept, it can lead to the wrong versions of records being used in policy decisions that could have far-reaching legal implications. When a final version is declared as a record, editing should not be allowed. If it is necessary to create a new version of a record it should only be possible to check out a copy of the record and to create a new version with the copy. The new version should be checked back into the repository as a new record. The link between the new version and the original record should be maintained especially where retention of previous versions is necessary as evidence of approval or the evolution of the document. 4.1.6 Authenticity Authenticity refers to the degree of confidence that a user can have that the record that he has access to is the original authentic record. Governmental bodies need to be able to prove the integrity of electronic record to enable them to be accountable. Information contained in records is a means of ensuring accountability and it may need to be produced as evidence in courts of law. To protect the authenticity, reliability, integrity, accuracy, adequacy and completeness of records, and to ensure their legal admissibility, the records must be protected against alterations by users and system administrators. All events that affect the reliability of records must be tracked and that audit trail must be kept as an unalterable record. It is also imperative that the system logs a history of all changes that were done on a record including the date of the change and the identification of the person who has taken the action. It should log changes to the records and to the metadata to ensure that the records remain reliable. 4.1.6.1 Audit and history trail In accounting, an audit trail is the sequence of paperwork that validates or Managing electronic records_Policy Guidelines.doc First Edition Version 1.1 April 2003
Page 1 and 2: MANAGING ELECTRONIC RECORDS IN GOVE
Page 3 and 4: Content PREFACE ...................
Page 5: i PREFACE The increasing use of ele
Page 8 and 9: 3 The Public Finance Management Act
Page 10 and 11: 5 guidelines set out in this public
Page 12 and 13: 7 means that it takes up very littl
Page 14 and 15: 9 o identifying records that are du
Page 16 and 17: 11 requirements regarding the mediu
Page 20 and 21: 15 invalidates accounting entries.
Page 22 and 23: 17 While some of the records publis
Page 24 and 25: 19 The National Archives and Record
Page 26 and 27: 21 electronic document management,
Page 28 and 29: 23 necessary to avoid technological
Page 30 and 31: 25 • if and e-mail is received an
Page 32 and 33: 27 records to capture of their webs
Page 34 and 35: 29 only be necessary to provide an
Page 36 and 37: 31 bodies should ensure that, even
Page 38 and 39: 33 Managing electronic records_Poli
Page 40 and 41: 35 To ensure that records remain ac
Page 42 and 43: 37 Because users have high expectat
Page 44 and 45: 39 records. Archiving Electronic re
Page 46 and 47: 41 The electronic records managemen
Page 48 and 49: 43 duplicating documents that alrea
Page 51 and 52: 46 ANNEXURE B: Digital preservation
Page 53 and 54: 48 Migration Strategy 5. Store reco
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Page 57 and 58: 52 the system. A transfer list in w
Page 59 and 60: 54 Supportive legal documents attac
Page 61 and 62: 56 ANNEXURE D: General disposal aut
Page 63 and 64: 58 Africa, EXCLUDING records contai
Page 65: 60 4.13 Security Backup Files Elect
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63 (e) (f) (g) annotated drafts whe
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65 - Information in a form intended
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67 3. Deterioration of magnetic med
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69 Floppy disks and diskettes shoul
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71 signal which can be read using a
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73 in optical disks. WORM and rewri
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75 Insects and rodents once attract
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78 ANNEXURE I: Glossary Act The Nat
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80 Electronic records Any informati
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82 microfilm or electronic media).
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84 Transmission data Information in
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86 ANNEXURE J: Bibliography Aeon Ar
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88 Kronauer, C.: Special Report SAN
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90 Vasudeva, A.: Special Report SAN
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